Sherlock's Case Files contain miscellaneous postings from Skipp Porteous, president of Sherlock Investigations. Here you'll find investigative tips, testimonials, and tantalizing topics.
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Friday, September 30, 2005

Throw out your 900 MHz Radio Shack phone!

This morning we performed an electronic sweep on a Lexus. Typically, we look for hidden active and passive GPS trackers, bumper beepers, tape recorders, and microphones and transmitters.

While the vehicle appeared clean, the client brought along her cordless phone and asked if we could check it out. The first thing that we noticed is that it was a 900 MHz phone. These older models should be discarded and replaced by newer models...unless you want your neighbors up to a half-mile away listening to your conversations. Anybody can buy a scanner for this at Radio Shack.

Even here in New York City, we can turn on our scanner and hear cordless phone and baby monitors five blocks away. While this can be amusing, one feels intrusive when doing this.

So, if you have an older, 900 MHz cordless phone, toss it and pick up a 2.4 GHz or 5.8 GHz model. Remember, anything that broadcasts on a radio frequency can be picked up by private parties, but ordinary people don't have the equipment to do this. The general rule to remember is: don't say anything on a phone, any phone, that you don't want a third party to hear.

About Me

Hi, I'm Skipp Porteous. I'm a New Yorker who lives in Manhattan. I specialize in wiretap and "bug" detection. The thing I like most about being a private investigator is being able to help people. I firmly believe that if you give, it will be given back to you.
I researched the unsolved crime of the century for 3 years and wrote the book "Into The Blast: The True Story of D.B. Cooper." It was published by Adventure Books of Seattle, and the editor of Adventure Book, Robert Blevins, co-authored it with me.